Contraption Maker

In this latest free update to Contraption Maker we have added a few new parts. Meet Andrew and Zoe. Two eggs that have some special abilities.

Andrew

Andrew is a true tennis star recently earning a silver medal in the Egglypics losing to John McEggroll in the finals. If anything comes close to him he will bat it away with his tennis racket. He is also able to knock away ghosts with one swing of his racket. When not swinging a racket he writes novels.

Zoe

Zoe is a wonderful photographer who loves nature and will snap photos of any critter that comes close. The flash will startle some of them and cause them to back away. Her flash will also make Zombie Tim turn around and walk away. Any ghosts hit by the flash will turn blue and they will be unable to spirit away any other parts for a short amount of time.

She is also a Duck Egg which is the best type of egg there is.

Zoe's Camera

If Zoe's Camera is jostled hard enough it will flash which will scare away various creatures.

Have Fun!

You should be able to make some cool contraptions with these new parts. Have fun!

Mighty Knights Update Sneak Peek

There is also a Mighty Knights update coming in the future. There is a cast of Mighty Knight characters and they each have their own special abilities.

It also has a complete terrain system with an editor tool.

It seamlessly works with all the other Contraption Maker parts.

Here is a quick sneak peak of it (note: work-in-progress with some "not-final" artwork):

The Mage casts a spell and creates a Grunt.

Setting up the Archer's behavior. She is very deadly.

Testing the collision borders created when the Digger digs his way through the terrain.

Hello all, and welcome to another new Contraption Maker update! This update is free for owners of the game, and it should come to your Steam library shortly. If you aren't getting the update, restarting Steam usually does the trick.

The main focus of this update is a new type of puzzle that we are trying out. We are calling them "sandbox scenarios", and we are pretty excited about them!

Sandbox Scenarios

Sandbox Scenarios are are located in the puzzle menu under the new "Sandbox" tab. The way to think about these is kind of a structured version of the Maker Lab. There are a number of scenarios to play through, and most aren't actually that difficult to solve. Instead of doing things the easy way, show off your creativity and solve it in the most "Contraption Maker" way that you can. You are given access to as many parts as you need to get through these scenarios.

Once you have finished a scenario, you can share it to the Workshop for everyone else to check out. Did you get the egg in the box in a way that you are super proud of? Share it to the Workshop and show off to everyone else how you did it. Scenario solutions are all shared together to make it easy to see how everyone has solved a certain challenge.

Are you working on something super awesome that you can't finish in one play session? No worries! Just leave your scenario and come back later, and your contraption will save exactly how you left it.

We are excited to see how everyone solves these shared scenarios in their own ways. You are more than welcome to complete these as easy as you want, but where's the fun in that?

New Achievements

The new sandbox scnearios are coming with some new achievements as well. These are a little experimental, and if this is something everyone likes we would love to add more.

Sandbox achievements add specific challenges to some of the scenario levels. Getting the basketball into the box is pretty easy, but can you do it using only ropes and teeter totters? Please let us know in the forums if challenges like this are interesting, and if you would like to see more of them!

Puzzle Fixes

Unfortunately some of the Halloween puzzles snuck out with a few issues. The puzzles have been fixed and should now all be solvable :-)

Feedback

Sandbox scenarios are something we think will be fun, but we definitely would like to hear your feedback. Is this something you find fun? Would you like to see more of these in addition to more achievement challenges? Let us know in the forums what you would like to see!

To celebrate October and Halloween, we just put out a spooky free Contraption Maker update for you all to enjoy! This is smaller than a normal update, but stay tuned for a few weeks from now when we launch our awesome new "Sandbox Update"!

New Puzzles

A new pack of 15 puzzles has been added. Are you brave enough to play through this Halloween themed puzzle pack? Some of the puzzles are scary hard, beware.

New Part

We added a ghost with a mind of his own. The ghost will float around and chase after any parts that have the ability to move. Don't let him get too close though. Any movable part that the ghost touches will disappear!

New Project Update

Our new project is coming along quite nicely, and we are getting really excited about it. Here is some more concept art for you to check out.

Thank you all for your patience, and enjoy our latest free Contraption Maker update! This update was very helpful to get Justin and his team up to speed on all of our systems in Contraption Maker. This will make it much easier to get future updates out more often.

Here are all of the awesome new things you can find in this update:

New Play Blocks

The Play Blocks are a fun new type of part. These blocks are like our wooden board parts on steroids. Play Blocks come in a variety of different shapes, and can all be freely rotated and sized. They also all have a number of rope attachments on them as well. Stack them up, knock them down, make elevators, gates, and more! There were some super "fun" physics problems encountered while trying to implement these blocks, but Kevin powered through them all and we are really excited to see what sort of fun things you guys do with them.

If you think of any new shapes, or something that you think these blocks really need, please let us know in the forums.

New Puzzles

This is a smaller puzzle update with just 10 new puzzles, but they are all centered around the Play Blocks. The main purpose of these puzzles is to show some ideas of how they can be used in your own contraptions.

Menu Revamp

We have changed around how the menus in the game are organized. The game is now separated into "Puzzles", "Contraptions", and the "Maker Lab". You have always been able to view player contraptions from the play menu, but they have been hidden over on the side. We wanted to make the distinction between these more clear since a puzzle is something you actually have to solve, while a contraption is just something that you watch.

Also, as we start to add new puzzle types in upcoming updates, it makes much more sense for puzzles to have their own section. You will notice if you go to the puzzle section that there is a new puzzle type called "sandbox" coming soon. More on that later!

Maker Lab Templates

Templates are a fun new feature that we added to the Maker Lab. It can be really daunting to go to the Maker Lab and start with a blank blue screen with no idea what to do first. Now if you don't want to start with a blank canvas, you can start with a template.

Templates are separated into puzzles, contraptions, backgrounds, and mods. If you know what you want to build but you don't want to worry about making your own background, start with a pre-made background and just focus on building. Templates work just like other Maker Lab contraptions, so you can copy and paste parts into your own projects. See someting you like in one of our templates? Select it, copy it, and paste it into whatever you are working on.

Are there certain types of templates that you like more than others, or types that you would like to see more of? Please head over to the forums and let your voice be heard!

Achievements

Achievemnents have been added to give you some challenges to work towards. This is just our first batch, as there may or may not be some new type of achievements I'm pretty excited about that may or may not be coming out with these elusive new "sandbox puzzles". I may have already said too much. I think government agents may be coming to take me out now.

New Project

Here is a bit more (very early) concept work from our new upcoming project. It is going to be a standalone game from Contraption Maker, but it will be in what we informally call the "Contraption Maker Family".

Hey everyone, long time no update. We've been pretty busy over here at Spotkin. Here is a quick overview of everything that we've been doing:

Farewell to Keith

After many years of game development, our friend and programmer Keith Johnston has made the tough decision to move on from Spotkin and enter a new stage of his career outside of the games industry. We are so thankful for all of the great years we got to spend with Keith at Spotkin, and we wish him the best of luck with everything in the future.

To replace Keith, we are teaming up with long time friend and original GarageGames associate Justin Mette. Justin and his team are very excited to be working with us again, and they are pumped to make Contraption Maker the best game that they can. As with any transition, there has been a bit of downtime as they are getting up to speed on all of our systems.

Contraption Maker Mobile

We took some time to start work on and evaluate the mobile version of Contraption Maker. We obviously all have phones and tablets, and we are all so excited to get the game into the hands and pockets of everyone in the world. The mobile version is technically up and running, but after taking a deeper look at it, we are going to be back-burnering this project for a while.

In addition to a complete overhaul of the UI to make the game more touch friendly, there is going to need to be a lot of time and resources put into deeper issues like memory, game size, etc. Becuase of this, and because of the crazy nature of the current mobile market, the mobile release is going to be pushed much farther back.

We are happy to have it running how it is, and we all really want to be able to release it, but there are just so many more importanat things (like desktop Contraption Maker) that we need to focus our resources on right now.

Contraptioneers & Schools

Deborah has been doing some some amazing work with Contraption Maker and schools. Contraption Maker is now available in over 300 schools! The Incredible Machine was a very popular game in schools back in the 90's, and it's so great to see Contraption Maker gaining so much traction all these years later.

A map of everywhere Contraption Maker is being used in education

Here are some recent highlights from our blog about Contraption Maker education:

We have started what we are calling the "Contraptioneer" program. Contraptioneers are rockstar teachers that love our game and our mission. They are helping us spread the word about the game, developing lesson plans and curriculum, and giving us feedback on how to improve the game for use in schools. There are currently 8 contraptioneers, and the list is growing quickly! Check out THIS LINK[contraptionmaker.com] to see our list of contraptioneers.

We are also working on a project with the Hewlett Foundation, but there isn't much we can publicly talk about yet. You can expect to hear more on this soon :-)

Contraption Maker Updates

You may notice each time you launch Contraption Maker, our splash screen mentions our awesome "Winter Update". Last time I checked, it's July now which means it isn't exactly winter anymore. Updates haven't stopped, they have just taken lower priority as we have worked on everything else. We have a new "walls & structure" update that we are pretty excited about coming out fairly soon.

In addition to the upcoming update, we are going to start releasing much more regular free updates. Although we love the game, there are so many things we can continue to do to make it the best game that it can be. In an announcement next week, I will be outlining our entire future roadmap and plan. Just know that you can expect things such as new parts, puzzles, interface improvments, game modes, achievements, and more!

New Project

On top of all this, there may be something else in the works...I'm not sure though. I have no idea where this concept art came from...